A group of people who had been denied basic rights enjoyed by others approached the highest court in the land. Thousands of years of tradition stood against them. They were opposed by powerful interests that saw their cause as a threat. On their side, they had only the righteousness of their cause and the truth of their arguments. When their pleas for justice were heard, the honest sensibility of their position was so incontrovertible that the halls of power could not deny them. They won fair treatment that put them on the path toward freedom and equality.

That is this week's story, both in the news and in the Torah. It is the story of the U.S. Supreme Court restoring equal marriage in California and ruling that the federal government must recognize all legal marriages equally — those of same-sex couples the same as those of straight couples. It is also the story of the daughters of Zelophechad in this week's Torah portion (Pinchas).

The Torah recounts how the five daughters of Zelophechad — Machlah, Noah, Choglah, Milkah and Tirzah — approached Moses after the death of their father. In front of all the elders of Israel, they explained that their father had no sons to carry on his name and inherit his land. Since women were not permitted to inherit, his name would be lost and his land holdings would be absorbed by others. They asked, given these circumstances, that they receive the right to inherit.

Traditionally, this is considered one of the four incidents in which Moses had to consult with God in order to answer a legal question (Sifre Shelach 113). Moses brought the case of the five sisters to God and God told Moses, "The plea of Zelophechad’s daughters is just. You should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kin. Transfer their father’s share to them" (Numbers 27:7). In addition, God instructed Moses that this rule would apply any time a man died without a son. His daughters would be allowed to inherit.

In the context of the time, this was a great victory for justice. But was the victory of the daughter's of Zelophechad complete? No. They won the right to inherit, but only when there were no sons to inherit ahead of them. It took many centuries more for any human society to reach the point where men and women would be be accorded equal property rights. It was not a complete victory, but an important milestone on the way toward equality.

The same is true of Wednesday's victories in the Supreme Court. It was a great victory, but not a complete one. Two thirds of Americans still live in states that do not accord equal marriage rights to all of their citizens (and I am one of them). There is still a great deal of work left to do in the cause of justice.

We Americans are proud to live in a country that values liberty and freedom as much as we do. Sometimes, we assume that freedom comes as easily as breathing in our country — as if it were part of our society's culture and DNA. We forget that there are many Americans whose freedom is denied by persistent forms of discrimination. If some adult Americans do not have the right to marry the person they love, no matter what state they live in, we have not yet reached the full promise of being a free country.

We also forget that winning freedom is not easy. Like the thousands of American men and women who have spoken up for equal marriage, the daughter's of Zelophechad did not sit in their tents waiting for justice to be delivered to them. They did not despair that the obstacles were too great, or that they had to accept inequality. They gathered their courage to stand in front of powerful men to ask for something no woman had received before. They made their case in such a powerful way that not even the mighty could deny the truth of a God who loves justice. They won because they dared to speak up and to fight for what they believed.

Tell me if this story sounds familiar to you. The task is not yet complete. There is so much more we need to do to create the society of our dreams. Keep standing up and speaking out for justice.

The United States Supreme Court is going to decide any moment now on two cases that involve same-sex marriage. Advocates on both sides of this issue are anxiously awaiting either a moment of celebration or of despair. Of course, it is possible that they will get neither. The Court could rule differently in the two cases, or it could decide both with halfway measures that make neither side completely happy. Stay tuned.

A few words must suffice because the tradition does not offer much more. The only laws regarding same-sex intercourse in the Hebrew Bible are two verses in the book of Leviticus: "Do not lie down with a male, the lying with a woman. It is an abhorrence” (Leviticus 18:22), and "A man who lies down with a male, the lying with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrence. They shall be put to death, their bloodguilt upon them" (Leviticus 20:13).

(You may be wondering about the story of Lot in Sodom in Genesis 19 as another example of homosexuality in the Bible. The "Sin of the Sodomites" is not regarded as homosexuality in Jewish tradition, as I discussed in another post. And, no, there is no mention at all in the Hebrew Bible about sexuality between two women.)

We might be tempted to say that the two verses in Leviticus are enough to end the debate, at least regarding male homosexuality. We have a commandment that calls sex between two men an "abhorrence," and we have a punishment for those men who do have sex with each other that includes the death penalty. What more is needed?

A careful look at these two verses, however, shows that this is not an open-and-shut case. To start with, both verses use rather tortured syntax to refer to the abhorrent act. "The lying with a woman" seems to be a phrase that Leviticus is using to specify sexual intercourse, not simply lying down next to another guy. The text needs that explanation for a simple reason — there is no word in Biblical Hebrew that means homosexual. The idea of two men having sex can only be conveyed in Biblical Hebrew by comparing it to a man having sex with a woman.

That should not be surprising since English did not have the word "homosexual" until the late nineteenth century, at the earliest. The idea embodied in the word — that some people have a sexual attraction directed toward people of the same gender as part of their identity — is very much accepted today as a scientific fact. However, that idea did not exist until recent times. There wasn't even a word for it.

So, how was sexuality between two men understood before that modern understanding? How was it understood in the time of the Hebrew Bible? Throughout the Bible, sexuality between people of the same gender, especially between two men, is understood in one of two ways: 1) A form of violence and domination exerted by one man over another to humiliate him, and 2) A form of sexual excess that is so unbridled that it does not discriminate between male and female.

Interestingly, these are both forms of sexuality that, even today, are not practiced primarily by people whom we would call "homosexual." Modern examples of the first category are rapes committed in prisons, on battlefields, and by bullies in schools. (Here is a contemporary example from my own state of Florida, but it's not for the squeamish.) Such crimes are committed by men who seem to be more interested in subjugating and humiliating their victims than in sexual gratification.

The second category is the indiscriminate sexuality we associate with orgies and a "swinging lifestyle." (I'll let you Google that one for yourself.) The Greek Scriptures, known to Christians as the New Testament, seems particularly interested in this form of abhorrence and it vilifies it in several passages. See, especially, Romans 1:25-32, which refers specifically to men who allow their lust to become so unbridled that they "leave the natural use of women."

Clearly, this is not a reference to men who have an inborn sexual attraction for men — people we would describe as homosexuals. Rather, this passage from the Christian Bible refers to heterosexual men who depart from their natural orientation in order to feed a gluttonous sexual appetite.

(Why do I mention this Christian text? For the same reason a historian would. It is close in time to the final composition of the Hebrew Bible, and it was written by people who were familiar with the way the Jews of that time interpreted the Bible.)

In all these biblical references to same-gender sexuality, there is nothing like the typical homosexual and lesbian relationships of today — committed, stable, monogamous and family-oriented. There is nothing in the Bible that describes or condemns such relationships. The only thing condemned, in fact, is violent sexual subjugation of men by other men, and orgiastic behavior among women and men in which all seek sexual gratification indiscriminately — behaviors that, today, would not necessarily be labeled as homosexual.

In looking at the two verses from Leviticus, we should also note that the Hebrew word for "abhorrence" (sometimes translated "abomination") does not carry quite the same punch as it does in English. The Hebrew is to'eivah, and the meaning of the word changes in different contexts. In the Joseph story, to'eivah is the word that describes the way that Egyptians feel about eating at a table with Israelites (Genesis 43:32). Apparently, they thought our ancestors had bad table manners. The word is not always used in the Bible to convey moral outrage.

To'eivah is also the word the Hebrew Bible uses to condemn a woman wearing men's clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5), a man remarrying a woman he had divorced previously (Deuteronomy 24:4), and predicting the future from signs and omens (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). Clearly, Jewish tradition does not consider these to be transgressions of a degree that we would associate with the English words "abhorrence" or "abomination."What is more, the very passage in Leviticus that calls sex between two men an abhorrence, also declares that a man may not marry his wife’s sister (Leviticus 18:18). Yet, within the Hebrew Bible itself, Jacob married first Leah and then her sister, Rachel, without a hint of condemnation. The Bible, at times, questions its own laws.

The Talmud and other rabbinic literature contain but a few passages about homosexuality. Interestingly, there is not a single case mentioned in which the death penalty was enforced. It is uncertain to what degree the rabbis may have wished to overlook this law, as, for example, they chose to overlook the law demanding the death penalty for insubordinate children.

The rabbis of the Talmud accepted the general idea of a ban on homosexuality between men, but they also denied that such behavior even existed among Jews. They did extend the ban to include sexuality between two women, but they did so by defining it as a form of lewd behavior (like dressing immodestly) and categorized it as a "foreign practices," that is, imitative of the sexual practices of other nations. Jews, the rabbis assumed, don't do that sort of thing.

But rabbinic tradition also contains passages that counter the condemnation of homosexuality. The Talmud states that it is forbidden to humiliate another person and that one may even violate a negative commandment ("Thou shalt not...") in order to avoid humiliation (B. Berachot 19b). The Talmud also states that a person who is compelled to transgress a law by forces beyond his or her control has not truly sinned.

In an age when science has given us the understanding that sexual orientations is not a choice — it is an aspect of our nature with which we are born — our thinking about Jewish law and homosexuality must change. We need to re-evaluate our understanding of Torah if it leads us to condemn people when they seek to fulfill — with love and compassion — the sexual desires God has given them. We must recognize that it is the height of humiliation to tell people that they are unworthy of love and intimacy because of the way that God has made them.

Can Judaism do that? Can we change the way we read the Torah because of changes in human understanding? In fact, Judaism demands that we do so. No less an authority on the Torah than Maimonides stated that God gave us minds so that we would use them. It is our obligation, he wrote, to use our abilities to discover scientific truths about the natural world and to apply what we learn to our understanding of Torah. Given our uncertainty in understanding what the Bible means in the few places it discusses homosexuality, we have an obligation to consider all the evidence we have in interpreting its words.

When the Supreme Court makes its ruling today, or in the next few days, about same-sex marriage, it is certain to set off a new round of debate about homosexuality, the Bible and religion. Be ready for it. Also be ready to defend the ideas that there is more than one "religious" way of looking at these questions. From the perspective of a Judaism that is willing to change with a changing understanding of God's creation, the religious reading may be the one that leans on the side of compassion and love.

Balak had a problem. He was the King of Moab and he saw that more than half a million able-bodied Israelites were about to enter his territory. He was terrified that they would wipe away his resources and pose a military threat to his rule. Naturally, he hired a prophet, Balaam, to come and put a curse on them. (Isn't that what you would do?):

"Now, please go and curse these people for me, for they are too strong for me. Then, perhaps, I will prevail, strike them down, and drive them from the land. For I know that whomever you bless is blessed, and whomever you curse is cursed." (Numbers 22:6)

As you probably know, this plan backfired badly for Balak. From the beginning, Balaam told him that he could only say the words that God put in his mouth. The prophecy that Balaam spoke upon Israel was not a curse, but a blessing.

So here's a question: If you had a prophet in your employ whom you believed had the power to bless and curse effectively, would you ask that prophet to curse your enemies, or would you ask the prophet to bless you?

A commentary on this week's Torah portion (Balak) asks just this question. "Would it not have made more sense for Balak to ask Balaam to bless Moab with victory in battle?" asks the commentary of Beit Ramah. "We learn from this that the essential intention of Israel’s enemies is not to seek their own benefit, but to harm Israel. Their anger at Israel does not flow from love of their own people, but hatred of Israel." (Itturei Torah, Vol. 5, p. 141).

I will leave it to you, dear reader, to evaluate how well that observation reflects the history of antisemitism and the current situation of the State of Israel. You may believe that Beit Ramah has a keen insight about Israel's antagonists in the past and in the present. However, I want to consider instead what this commentary says about each of us.

Who would you rather be — a person who puts energy into building up his or her own self, or a person who puts energy into tearing others down? Are you a person whose primary motivation comes from the desire to create love and connection in your own life, or a person who is primarily interested in knocking down opponents?

We all have a place within us that would rather draw on the energy created by our animosities than the energy of our better natures. We all have an impulse to spend our time in conflict with the people and things that trouble us, instead of investing that time in building connections to people we care about and developing our strengths. Each of us, sometimes, lets the cursing impulse rule us.

At such times, though, we usually fail to notice that the choice to pursue conflict almost always backfires. Think about the last time you put your energy into fighting against someone or something you defined as your "enemy." Was the outcome what you had hoped for? Did the problem go away, or did it just reappear in another form? Did the experience create joy in your life, or did it just make you feel angrier?

In contrast, when we put our focus on blessing instead of curse, we become more connected, compassionate and happier. When we face conflicts by looking inward for the ability to deal with difficult situations, we may find that resolution comes more easily than when we begin by assuming the worst about others. It also makes us feel better about ourselves and helps us to find unexpected solutions. I don't think there is any guarantee that this will happen every time, but it usually works.

Personally, I find this to be true when I face difficult classroom management situations as a teacher. Instead of assuming that misbehaving students are malicious brats, I try to focus instead on myself. I ask questions about my behavior as a teacher: Am I giving students material that is appropriate for them? Are they misbehaving because I am not meeting their needs? Because I am not recognizing their abilities and limitations? Am I boring them? By seeking the blessing of being a better teacher — instead of cursing the bad behavior of the students — I find greater fulfillment and greater success in the classroom.

It is easy for adult teachers to see children in a classroom as innocents, unworthy of our anger. Harder situations come when we feel like we are being treated badly or that we are being taken advantage of in a business setting or the realm of politics. There are times when we really can believe that we are in conflict with people who do not respect us and who do not wish us well. I will argue, though, that even in those situations, we are better off when we focus on blessing and not curse.

This is not because there aren't real causes for conflict in life and it is not because there are no real enemies. However, when we fight against enemies, real or imagined, our fuel is our fear and our anger. When we draw energy from those feelings, they begin to define us. An unremitting focus on conflict and enmity tends to turn us into the very thing we find fearful and enraging in others. Our anger makes us contentious, belligerent, unfriendly, unkind, unyielding and unhappy.

That is the lesson that the State of Israel has learned in dealing with its sometimes belligerent neighbors. It is better to focus on taking care of ourselves and our loved ones than to waste breath on cursing and fearing those whose opinions and behaviors we cannot change. If we must fight, let's fight for ourselves, not against enemies.

As Balak learned, God does not always respond well when we seek to curse our enemies. However, when we take the time and energy to look inward, to redefine the problem in a way that includes our own behavior, and to confront our own anger and fears, we find blessings where once before we only saw a curse.

Our family was getting ready for a vacation and it had taken the better part of the morning to get the last-minute packing done. Expectations of an early departure were frustrated and my parents were looking at each other with anger and blame. While they struggled with and against each other to get our family out of our New York City apartment, into the car, and out onto the road, the emotional temperature was rising.

I remember sitting in the back seat of our 1963 Mercury Comet sedan, illegally parked on the corner of East 82nd and Madison, with all the luggage finally stowed in the trunk. My father was in the driver's seat, my sister sitting next to me, and we were waiting for my mother to emerge from the apartment building so we could begin the long drive. It was hot, early summer. The traffic was noisy. My father — usually a calm and quiet man — was starting to fume with impatience. After ten minutes of waiting, finally…

Snap.

My father slammed his hand on the horn at the center of the steering wheel. It blasted. Unexpectedly, though, it didn't stop when he lifted his hand. In his anger, he had broken the horn and it just kept going in one, long, loud drone. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

At first, my sister and I were terrified. We had never seen our father so angry, and we imagined that the blaring horn would only make him angrier. Only, that didn't happen. We were surprised — and relieved — when our father started to laugh. Somehow, he had enough presence in that moment to recognize the ridiculousness of the situation.

I still remember that day sometimes when I face stressful situations. I remember how just surrendering to the absurdity of my mounting frustration can help me release tension and escape the vicious circle of anger that feeds on itself. I remember also, though, the terror I felt that day when I saw my father lose control.

There is a moment in this week's Torah portion (Chukat) that feels similar to me. Moses had spent months listening to the Israelites' unending griping. They complained about how much they missed Egypt, the land where they had been slaves. They whined about how Moses told them what to do all the time, even though they knew that God spoke directly to him. They even muttered against the miraculous manna that fell from the sky and kept them alive. On top of all of the stress generated by all the complaining, Moses also was grieving for the loss of his sister Miriam who had just died.

You can sense in the story that Moses was about to lose his cool. When the Israelites came to him complaining, once again, about the lack of water, something in Moses just went…snap.

God had told Moses to talk to a certain rock and command it to give water. The water, God said, would slake the Israelites' thirst. But Moses didn't do that. Instead of speaking to the rock, he let his anger show and he spoke derisively to the Israelites. He said, "Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10). Moses then slammed the rock twice with his rod. The water flowed and did not stop until every Israelite and every animal belonging to them was satisfied. The people were relieved and the muttering campaign against Moses was stifled for the moment, but something else was broken.

After the incident at the rock, God spoke to Moses and told him, "Because you did not have faith in Me to sanctity Me in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them" (Numbers 20:12). God did not like the way that Moses lost his temper in front of the Israelites and the consequences for Moses were severe. God told Moses that he would not enter the land of Israel, even after leading the Israelites there for forty years.

It seems odd to me that God said that Moses did not show faith. In what way could that be true? Is losing self-control in anger a form of "losing faith"?

The science of psychology teaches us that human beings have far more control over their emotional impulses than any other creature. Our brains' huge frontal lobes allow us to see beyond the present moment and to plan for the future. That includes the ability to find better solutions for frustrating situations than aggressive, angry behavior.

Using our ability for impulse control is, in many ways, what Jewish law is all about. We practice impulse control over our appetites through the laws of kashrut. We discipline our impulse toward greed through acts of tzedakah. We moderate our impulse to anger by practicing patience, compassion toward others, and self-compassion. If we show our faith in God by adhering to dietary laws and the laws that command generosity to those in need, certainly, we also keep the faith by exercising restraint in our anger.

Proverbs teaches, "It is better to be slow to anger than to be mighty, and one who has self-control is better than one who conquers a city" (16:32). The real might is self-discipline. The real conquest is the conquest over oneself.

And here is another reason for practicing self-restraint. Moments of uncontrolled anger can be powerfully destructive. We do not need the example of Moses who lost his chance to enter the Land of Israel. Our prisons are filled with people who did something terrible in a fit of rage. When we begin to see red, we shut off our frontal lobes and lose the ability to see beyond the present moment. The hurt and harm we can do in such a moment can last forever with terrifying consequences.

We can find greater joy and fulfillment in life by developing the techniques of channeling our anger. Doing so does not require that we become all-forgiving saints or emotionless Vulcans. It just requires practicing some proven techniques — deep breaths when the temperature starts to rise, clear statements about what we are feeling and what we want, walking away from a difficult situation before we blow our top, and even, as my father taught me, the ability to laugh at oneself.

We sanctify God and we sanctify our own lives when we learn to be the masters of our own minds. The happiness we find in controlling our own impulses is more satisfying and more lasting than any momentary satisfaction we might feel when we snap in explosive anger.

Korach has a bad reputation. But that reputation is all about the way he ended up, not the way he started.

I want to sing the song of Korach, that rebel of all rebels who opposed Moses and was punished with fire from God and swallowed up by the earth. I want to remember him with some fondness and remember that we all have a little Korach in us. It is a spirit that we need to develop and nurture lovingly.

Korach appears in this week's Torah portion (which is named, appropriately, Korach) as a member of the tribe of Levi who complained about Moses' leadership. Accompanied by 250 prominent Israelites, Korach told Moses and Aaron, "You have gone too far, for all of the community — all of them! — are holy and Adonai is in their midst. So, why should you elevate yourselves over the community of Adonai!" (Numbers 16:3).

You have to admit, it's a powerful argument. It is even a democratic argument.

Korach held that there was no good reason why Moses and Aaron alone should be in charge of the whole Israelite community — dictating the laws, deciding how they would be enforced, and appointing the heads of each tribe and clan. Korach held that it was wrong for Moses to assume the exclusive right to decree God's will. Korach declared that God was not the exclusive possession of any one person — no matter how wise or pious — and that each Israelite should be recognized as having his or her own sacred relationship with God.

Moses appeared to see the virtue of the argument, too. The first thing he did when he heard Korach's charge was to fall to the ground with his face down. In the culture of the Ancient Near East, that gesture had a clearly understood meaning. Falling on ones face was an acknowledgment of another person's superiority and a sign of humility. Moses understood that he was being chastised for a personal failing he had known about for a long time.

Before the Israelites had even received the Ten Commandments, Moses' father-in-law, Yitro, had warned Moses about his tendency to accumulate power to himself. He told Moses, "What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you sit alone and make the people stand before you from morning to night? … What you are doing is no good. You are going to wear yourself out and this people along with you, for this responsibility is too heavy for you to bear alone" (Exodus 18:14,17-18). Moses was something of a control freak, to put it in modern parlance, and Korach was calling him on it. Moses needed to let go.

But before we psychoanalyze Moses' need to control things, let's look at Korach. What kind of personality might we attribute to a person who recognizes when an authority figure has gone too far? What could we say about someone who challenges power run amok? We could say that Korach himself was power hungry and he used Moses' personality flaw as a point of leverage to attack him and to attract other Israelites to follow him. That is possible. It is also possible that Korach had a strong sense of fair play and the courage to stand up against injustice — even against a very powerful foe.

Who would you be rooting for in this narrative if it were happening today? Would you side with the man who says he uniquely speaks for God and has the unilateral authority to set laws over you? Or, would you root for the man who challenges the established order and declares that power should be shared by all?

Unlike James Dean's character in Hollywood's Rebel Without a Cause, Korach is a rebel with a cause. Korach does not fight aimlessly against a meaningless universe. Oh, no. Korach's cause is either to aggrandize himself, or it is to affirm the divinity within everyone. Either way, he believes in something. He believes that there is a need for order that is different from the current order.

That is a spirit to be nurtured. We need people who passionately want to change the world.

Jewish tradition teaches that the way the world is right now is not the way that God intends it to be. We are living in a broken world, either because of a cosmic catastrophe (as Lurianic Kabbalah teaches), because the link between heaven and earth was broken by the destruction of the Temple, or simply because error and sin are the nature of imperfect human beings. The world is in need of repair, tikkun olam, and human beings are needed to make it right.

Yet, the story of Korach shows that having a passion for change is not enough. Korach may have started out with the right idea, but it got twisted at some point that made him more of a threat to the world than a solution to its problems. We can actually find that moment right in the story.

Moses challenged Korach and his followers to an odd cosmic duel. Moses tested Korach's assumption that all the Israelites were equals before God. He told Korach, "You and all of your followers will be before Adonai tomorrow — you, they and Aaron. Each of you will take his firepan and place incense upon it and offer it before Adonai" (Numbers 16:16-17). It was as if Moses challenged Korach by saying, "If you think that you deserve the privilege of serving God as much as Aaron, the High Priest, then let's see what God thinks of your offering compared to his."

Korach didn't notice the paradox of Moses' challenge. He did not see that being a leader should not be about having special privileges; it should be about having the humility to serve selflessly. Moses offered the bait and Korach swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Korach took the firepan that belonged to someone else and was burned when "fire went out from Adonai and ate up the 250 men offering the incense" (Numbers 16:35). The burning bodies of Korach and his followers, according to rabbinic interpretation, were also among those that were buried when "The ground gaped open beneath them and the earth's mouth opened and swallowed them" (Numbers 16:31-32).

Korach had been at his best when he declared that his rebellion against Moses was not about himself. He had said, "All of the community — all of them! — are holy." Now, however, it was Moses' turn to recognize Korach's personality flaw and use it against him. If Korach had answered the challenge differently, the story would have ended differently. If he had said, "No, Moses. It is not for me to take up God's offering, or even for my 250 followers to do so. It is the right of every Israelite, for they are all members of a nation of priests," then he would have had a strong moral basis to continue his challenge.

But he didn't. Korach's ego was too invested in everything he did. He may have been sincere about wanting to create a more democratic and just society, but Moses demonstrated that Korach also really wanted power for himself. The greatest distinction between the personality of Korach and the personality of Moses is that, when challenged, Moses threw himself to the ground in humble admission of his flaws. Korach, in contrast, lifted his ego up and claimed the right to assume the highest honor.

Korach saw something that was truly wrong — even Moses knew that it was wrong — and he wanted to do something about it. So, let us sing some praises for Korach! Let us recognize that there is a part of us also that does not just want to complain about injustice of the world, but actually wants to change it. We need more people like that … but only up to a point.

The spirit of defiance needs to be carefully tempered with humility. We need to develop the courage within ourselves to fight for what is right, but we need to kindle and build that fire with great awareness of the ways in which it can burn us. We know too well how easily righteousness can become self-righteous. We know that successful crusaders for justice, once they have become powerful themselves, can turn into leaders who are even more cruel than the tyrants they overthrew.

That is why Korach met his fate of fire and earth. It was not because his ideas of justice and equality were wrong; it was because he could not get out of the way of his own ego. When he was offered the opportunity to step aside from power, he could not do it. As flawed a leader as Moses might have been — and we are all flawed — Korach would have been far worse. The fire for change that burned within him was also the fire of selfish greed. To make that clear, he had to be burned by the fire of heaven and he had to be humbled by being devoured into the mouth of the earth.Other Posts on This Topic:Vayikra: The Joy of ContritionVa'eira: Playing God?Beha'alotecha: Eldad and Medad

Welcome

This blog is about living a joyful Jewish life and bringing joy to synagogues and the Jewish community. Join the conversation by commenting on posts and sharing your experiences. For more on the topic, read the First Post.